Maggie's Farm

Which reminds me of the Orwell crack that something was to stupid that only an intellectual would believe it.

As for educating the gifted, we do keep hoping that something will pan out as an improvement, but it remains true that most geniuses are autodidacts. Perhaps that is necessary, and at least allowing that would do them some good.

There has been a trend in the last 50 years to have more structured programs for the gifted: more magnet schools, more AP courses and more AP exams passed. One consequence of this is that while the gifted will acquire more skills and knowledge as a result, they will have less time to do their own exploring. I am reminded of a conversation I had with my father back in the 60s, perhaps as a consequence of a bad experience I was having with an AP course. My father told me that with more rigorous courses in school, there is less possibility for pursuing your own off-course interests. This trend was apparent in comparing his childhood in the 30's to my childhood in the 60's, and the trend has continued. My father spoke as someone who had turned his childhood hobby into a profession- a profession where he had done very well.

When looking at my primary and secondary education, my conclusion is that there is no easy answer. In my primary education, I was to a large degree an autodidact. A large part of my education came from free range reading after school, but I still paid attention during class.

At the regional secondary school I attended, I greatly resented that because my primary school had a "one size fits all" approach, I was a year behind my intellectual peers in math and foreign languages, because they had taken first year high school math and foreign language in junior high in their town, and I had not. But ultimately that made no difference. I got my engineering degree. I became fluent in Spanish, and used my fluency to work in Latin America.

From my high school experience, my conclusion is that the educational experiences for gifted/upper level in high school are highly dependent on what programs are in place. Autodidact doesn't work as well when you have a lot of homework to do, and you want to have a good grade.

The upper level math program my high school had - a New Math approach- was an excellent fit for the top eighth or so of students, but not so good for the second eighth of students. My 9th grade math teacher was an incompetent teacher, although a Phi Beta Kappa Math graduate from a flagship state university. She knew her subject, but was not a good classroom manager. The book was so good that I taught myself- and developed a love of math that I didn't have in primary school.

For a less positive experience in gifted/upper level in high school, I present my AP Humanities course. The History teacher in that course taught American History, but didn't have the knowledge base to teach an AP World History course. Nor did he want to stay up 'till midnight to refresh his knowledge. [Nor would I.] I found it very demoralizing to have this teacher tell me to work my ass off when it was readily apparent that he was slacking off- in contrast to the other teachers in the course, who presented well-informed, well-organized lectures. Word got out about the teacher: the AP Humanities class got cancelled the next year because so few signed up for it.

Why the different reactions to incompetent teachers? When an incompetent teacher requires a lot of work- the difference between a 9th grade course and a 12th grade AP course- it is more difficult to overcome an incompetent teacher. Second: when you have an incompetent teacher, and you are left on your own to learn the material, you have to get by on your inherent abilities. I found out that I had more inherent ability in math than in history. Before 9th grade, I was planning to be a historian.

Success in college is highly dependent on self-motivation, on teaching yourself. Most STEM lectures are not understood without going over the material yourself before and/or after the lecture. My engineering program required 60 + hours of classroom plus study. Granted there are a select few who do not need that , but they are a select few. The unmotivated cannot survive.

And the work I currently do, involving the creation and maintenance of large databases, is work I taught myself while working for a startup. As long as I could keep producing stuff, the startup's boss tolerated my learning on the job.

It ultimately comes down to teaching yourself. [No, I am not a genius.]